I’ve visited Storm King Art Center several times in the last ten years. Each time I’ve visited the experience has been totally different depending on the season, the weather and the people i’ve taken with me. The sculptures transform the landscape and the landscapes transform the sculptures.

The Calder sculptures have always left a big impression on me. The viewer can feel the weight of the sculptures in the field. The experience of the sculpture changes from every vantage point.

Michael Nobbs is running a drawing competition on his site and the theme is “Analogue”. Looking around for something analogue to draw i realized that until recently i was living a pretty analogue life. Even though i have an ipod I still have my old CD “boom box” along with my old CD’s and tapes. Art supplies are pretty analogue too – you can’t get any more old school than a sketchbook, pencil and magic eraser. I had been working on a still life with a “SpongeBob Squarepants” action figure and thought that toys by nature are analogue. So while my iPod was charging i put a Robyn Hitchcock CD on my boom box and set out to draw Spongebob:

A couple of months ago I started to create artwork using iPhone apps. It started out as playing around with some of the sillier photo apps (such as putting people’s faces on animals). Next I started experimenting with apps such as Photogene, 101 Photo Effects, Art Camera, Gesture, Paintbook and Brushes. Brushes took the artwork to the next level and I wanted to try to make iPhone art that was more like my own artwork.

Back in the 90’s I was creating a series of mixed media drawings based on images of women in interiors with kitchy items such as lava lamps.

As I started working with the various painting and sketching “apps” I wondered how I could create digital collages that were reminiscent of these earlier drawings. I revisited (or recycled) the images and used Brushes, Photogene and Layers to create the collages but got a very different effect:

iPhone Art using Brushes and Layers

iPhone Art using Brushes, Photogene, Layers and Textdraw

iPhone Art using Photogene, Layers and Textdraw

Its been very exciting to work with the various iPhone apps since it is such a new medium and new apps are coming out every week. The advantages are that you can work very quickly and you never have to run out to the art supply store if you run out of a certain color.

I’ve been using the iPhone app Layers and thinking about how it is a metaphor for the layers of our lives and art. Certain images, like the Blue Boy, follow us through life and we see the image differently as we get older. When i was a young girl my cousin had a reproduction of the Blue Boy in her room. Now when i see a reproduction of that painting it brings back fond memories of my childhood. The image of Blue Boy in this picture is a ceramic statue which was taken through the window of a local “antique” shop. How many images will follow us through our lives and still have meaning?

Hello and Welcome!

Through the Lava Lamp features the artwork of Rita Flores created using cutting edge technology such as the iPad and iPhone, as well as more traditional work such as drawing and acrylic painting. Thank you for stopping by and please feel free to add comments or ask questions about my techniques.